April, 2019

• 2 April

  India opposition leader pledges to end poverty by 2030

  

  Bloomberg India’s main opposition Congress party has pledged to tackle unemployment and poverty as it seeks to wrest power from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling coalition just days out from a national election. Led by Rahul Gandhi, the party released its election manifesto in New Delhi, promising to rid India of poverty by 2030, waive farm loans, introduce a single ...

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• 2 April

  May’s cabinet confronts Brexit crisis

  

  Bloomberg Theresa May is expected to confront her most senior ministers with the potentially explosive option of delaying Brexit by months, as the UK struggles to find a plan for leaving the European Union. The British prime minister will hold five hours of crisis talks with her cabinet, with the pro- and anti-Brexit factions in her top team set to ...

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• 2 April

  After Idai, Mozambique Cholera cases top 1,000

  Bloomberg Mozambique has confirmed more than 1,000 cases of cholera as an outbreak of the water-borne disease spreads following a tropical cyclone last month which has so far killed at least 598 people in the southeast African nation. The number of cholera infections rose from 246 on March 30, the health ministry said in a statement. President Filipe Nyusi last ...

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• 2 April

  Trump tax cut would equal 6,500 miles of wall

  

  Here’s an interesting exercise: Compare what is arguably President Donald Trump’s signature policy achievement, the late 2017 tax cut, with perhaps his top policy goal, a wall on the border with Mexico, in purely numerical terms. Set aside for the moment all the political and social arguments about immigration and the border. The companies in the S&P 500 have already ...

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• 2 April

  Italy’s hug makes China feel warm

  

  Italy’s agreement to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative has unnerved European and US leaders who hoped for a united front against Beijing’s geo-economic ambitions. “Endorsing BRI lends legitimacy to China’s predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to Italian people,” White House’s National Security Council (NSC) warned via Twitter. While Chinese investment in Europe is ...

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• 2 April

  iPhone supplier’s share spike isn’t a good sign

  You know the situation must be dire if a company’s shares spike after it confirms plans to dilute shareholders. Japan Display Inc., a maker of screens for the iPhone and other gadgets, jumped as much as 14 percent. The catalyst was a brief statement from the company earlier in the day that said it was aiming to reach agreements this ...

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• 2 April

  The world better get used to negative rates

  Today, around $10 trillion of bonds are trading at negative yields, mainly in Europe and Japan. In the next recession, US interest rates, too, may enter negative territory: Short-term rates are currently running around 2.5 percent, and cuts of between 3 percent and 5 percent are commonly needed to restart economic activity. In markets where rates are even lower or ...

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• 2 April

  The automobile industry is overdue some mega-mergers

  

  Love is in the air again among the world’s automotive manufacturers. The alliance of Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. aims to restart merger talks in 12 months before moving on to a takeover of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, the Financial Times reported last week. Peugeot-owner PSA Group is also looking to build a partnership with Fiat ...

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• 2 April

  Thai impasse may send a wave of baht across Asia

  

  More than a week after Thailand’s first election in eight years, there’s still little clarity about the nation’s political future. The more frustrating that stalemate becomes, the bigger the incentive for Bangkok businesses to venture overseas. The March 24 polls, it seems, have solved nothing. If holding elections under a new constitution was supposed to lift politics from the streets ...

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• 2 April

  Missing unicorns cast doubt on a Shanghai dream

  

  Where are the unicorns? China’s first batch of candidates for its version of the tech-focused Nasdaq is an uninspiring bunch. Nine companies have been vetted for listing on Shanghai’s Science and Technology Innovation Board, out of 19 that filed applications. They’re also tiny, planning to raise just $1.6 billion combined. That’s a fraction of the $5.4 billion Xiaomi Corp. took ...

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